Cars must share the road, bicycles don’t have to

Having spent a considerable portion of my life growing up on the Kitsap Peninsula in Washington state, I never knew just how lucky we kids were that we could ride our bikes all over hill and dale without our parents fearing for our safety.

Back then, I thought that was normal. My brothers and I would ride the 3 miles into Manchester to goof around on the beach and get a candy bar at Manchester Foods before riding back home. Or, we would spend the day riding our bikes all over Manchester State Park, playing on the old Navy gun emplacements from World War II and exploring the dark underground bunkers with the dripping stalactites in every room. If we were really feeling adventurous, we’d ride the 6 miles along Beach Drive into Port Orchard (always really fast, one way and a work-out the other due to the wind whipping off Sinclair Inlet).

From fourth grade on, I rode my bike the 4 miles to school. If I took the Nevada Road cutoff, I could usually beat the bus back to my house, although Mom frowned on that because the rutted, muddy path through the woods called a “road” was sometimes frequented by Banditos bikers, people shooting and all manner of worrisome behavior. One of the craziest things we did was pedal up to the top of Woods Road hill, turn around, lean over the handlebars and pedal as fast as we could until gravity took over. The hill was about a mile long, quite steep and had a lengthy flat straight runway at the bottom we could use to slow down. We would go screaming down that hill like a rocket on two wheels, going so fast that the wheels would shimmy from the weight of the spoke reflector throwing them out of balance. My brother Greg got one of the really early electronic speedometers for his Fuji 18-speed and set a crazy 60 mph going down that hill once. (Oh, the things your parents never know!)

Our little elementary school, Manchester Elementary, would hold a bike rodeo every year on a Saturday. It was always a jam-packed affair with all the kids and their parents coming to get tips, bike inspections and have fun riding around little courses they’d set up. I remember this was where we would be told, year after year, the rules of riding on the roads. They’re still in my memory today:

1. Always ride on the right, with traffic.

2. Obey the same rules as cars (signs, yield, signaling etc.).

3. Always yield to cars.

Notice that last one. Back then, it seemed like a no-brainer. Still does. Hmmm, let’s see; 20-pound bicycle vs. several tons of rolling steel. Yeah, I think the bike is on the losing end on that one. Besides, it’s kind of hard to get satisfaction from, “But, but, I had the right of way!” when you’re in a full body cast and the other guy is at home with nary a scrape (well, except for perhaps the little bit of paint on his bumper). So we were told to always ride on the far right. If a car was coming, move beyond the white stripe. If there wasn’t sufficient room, we were told to pull over as far as possible, stop and get off our bikes if necessary until the car had passed.

But then came the big “share the road” campaign. By then I was older and driving cars, but at first “share the road” made sense. Bicycles are, after all, vehicles and have every right to use the road just like the rest of us. But as time went by, I began to think the slogan should be changed to “cars must share the road, bicycles don’t have to.”

The same scenic roads I used to ride on now had a new kind of bicyclist. These new guys liked to ride side-by-side, smiling and joking as they pointed to the sights while a long line of cars slowly trailed behind them. Woe be it to the car that honked or passed by too close; you’d get an angry bicyclist punching your car or hitting it with his helmet as he screamed, “share the road!” Even if it was only a single rider, the roads are so twisty back home that you still can’t pass a bicyclist unless they get wayyyy over to the side, which they wouldn’t. There could be a foot or more of pavement or dirt shoulder beyond the white stripe but, nope, as a “vehicle,” bicyclists weren’t obligated to ride there (and wouldn’t).

This became aggravating if you were running late for work, trying to catch a ferry to Seattle or get to an appointment. I can recall a ride with my step-dad once where we were on our way to catch the Southworth ferry to Vashon Island. We came around a corner and promptly hit the brakes behind a big pack of bicycle riders riding side-by-side. And no, they weren’t going to move.

As the winding miles saw us putting along at 15 mph, we finally had to concede that it was now impossible for us to make the boat. My step-dad wasn’t always the nicest guy in the world and sure enough, when we finally had enough visibility to pass, he flew by in a rage.

“Well, at least he didn’t holler at them as we passed,” I thought. But he wasn’t done yet. As soon as we got by, Dad hit the brakes and slowed the big old Power Wagon down to just a couple miles per hour. Once again the miles slowwwwly crept by as Dad proceeded to hold up the bicyclists, the big old Dodge belching out exhaust and leaving them no room to pass. I sunk low in my seat as the bicyclists yelled and screamed. Dad finally decided they’d had enough and hit the gas so we could make the next boat. But when we got to the dock, parked and waited, guess who was also catching that boat?

Luckily, my step-dad was a 6-foot-4 Swede who was built similar to Arnold Schwarzenegger. The little men in Spandex decided to wait on the other side of the dock.

I thought of that today as I read a news article about more and more people getting fed up with sharing the road with bicyclists. “Well,” I thought, “maybe I can understand why.”

Ben Compton is a Palmer resident and publishes his column as “Compton’s Corner,” the same title used by his grandmother, Phyllis Compton, a longtime Frontiersman columnist.